Something about the cover of All of Our Favorites Cookbook (undated, but the material from the fundraising cookbook press is copyright 1968-1981) makes me think it's from some top-secret organization.
Maybe it's the triangle symbol in the center of the page that makes me think of the Eye of Providence pyramid. This cookbook is actually from The Pioneer Partners of Hawkeye Chapter #17 of the Telephone Pioneers of America, an organization that is apparently still around and not particularly secretive.
One thing that actually kind of alarmed me about this book is that so many recipes are hybrids of the older style of recipe writing, listing ingredients in the narrative of the recipe, and the newer style, which lists all the ingredients up top and then gives the instructions underneath. That led to me often wondering things like "How do Jimmie Dean's Sausage Yummies have only one ingredient-- 10 oz. of cheddar cheese?" and then reading the recipe to see that the sausage and Bisquick are listed in the instructions, but not in the ingredients section. However, my skepticism was sometimes warranted.
I assume that Cranberry Waldorf Salad is actually supposed to contain cranberries, but the title is the ONLY indication that there should be any. Or maybe I'm wrong and "cranberries" is some super-secret reference that I just don't get because I'm not a Pioneer Partner.
My favorite part of the book, though, might be the section dividers. They're always countrified Precious Moments-style pictures, often incorporating a character I nicknamed Grandma.
Grandma's roly-poly dog begs for some of the roly-poly poultry on the platter at the beginning of the Main Dishes: Meat, Seafood, and Poultry chapter. The pup's low center of gravity makes it much easier to sit up and beg! The most interesting thing I learned about Grandma in this chapter is that she has NO IDEA what Jewish cooking is.
To be clear, I have ZERO expertise in Jewish cooking, but even I know that Jewish Meat Balls would neither contain pork nor mix meat with half and half cream. I'm not sure where Grandma got the name for this one (okay, I should credit Genevieve Whalen rather than Grandma for this one), but I'm pretty sure that whoever named this was seriously misinformed.
Maybe Grandma will be a little less ill-informed in the Main Dishes: Egg, Casserole, Cheese, and Spaghetti chapter.
At least her cheery wave and flowered housedress are enough to keep the chickens pacified for now. Just wait until they find out what will happen when they quit laying eggs....
The most surprising recipe in this chapter may just be a pickle recipe, though! If you're suspecting pickled eggs since this is an egg chapter, well, you're looking at the wrong category.
I've not seen a recipe for Pickled Noodles before. Pasta salads, yes, but straight up pickled noodles? Not so much. I'm also curious about what "Ritonti noodles" are. I suspected it might be a misspelling of "rotini," and a quick Google search returns rotini results as well, but who knows? There were so many small businesses and regional brands of food 40 years ago that it's possible "Ritonti" is as unfamiliar to me as Jewish cooking was to Grandma/ Ms. Whalen.
And finally, if you're wondering how Grandma and friends got so roly-poly, the introduction to this chapter suggests an answer.
Grandma's apparently less-spoiled backup dog is tickled that her "Honest Weight" is 200 because of her skill at making bread, rolls, pies, and pastry. That's why this one doesn't get to share the chicken in the earlier chapter.
And while many people think of bread itself as a fattening food, Grandma and Ms. Whalen take it to a whole new level.
Why eat bread when you can have Bread Fries? Just shape bread dough into fingers and fry until it's golden brown delicious. Serve with butter as a substitute for sliced bread and butter at a meal, then frost any leftovers to eat as snacks later!
I'm glad the Telephone Pioneers of America doesn't keep secrets because I loved reading through this book and watching Grandma and her pets go about their very weird days.
I was expecting bread fries to be slices of bread cut up into french-fry size sticks and fried. No, just have bread dough after its second rise sitting around for your meal time. Granted this would be a way of getting bread on the table when you don't have time to bake a loaf. Of course now people would just frost them to eat with their meal instead of waiting for later.
ReplyDeleteHaving slices of bread and butter to go with a meal seems like such an old-fashioned expectation, too. I'm glad we're not really in the meat/ potato/ other vegetable/ bread pattern anymore.
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